Here is one of my favorite skate trails. This is Manhattan Beach, California in southwest Los Angeles County. The city has 2.1 miles of coastline that has both a bike trail and a pedestrian trail. The trails run parallel to each other at the back of the beach for the full length of the city's coastline. The pedestrian trail, which is slightly elevated above the bike trail, is called “The Strand.” It is 12' to 14' wide. There is much to like about The Strand, including ocean views, a sea breeze, morning shade, no bike or vehicle traffic, and almost no trash to snag your wheels. But the biggest reason to like it is the ultra smooth concrete surface. So smooth your wheels hardly make a sound. Praise and honor are due to the engineers and finishers who put this in. They created a marvelous skating surface. Did I mention that it’s smooth? There are only a few places – maybe four – along the 2.1 miles of Strand where it is crossed by a not-as-smooth driveway. In most cases you can skate right across them.

Here is one of my favorite skate trails. This is Manhattan Beach, California in southwest Los Angeles County.

I used to spend 3 months a year out there (Santa Monica). My daily skate was from Will Rogers State Beach all the way down to Torrence, and back. I posted an extended slide show around here somewhere with hundreds of photos (350). Will see if I can find it.

Great video. You guys skated every trail in So Cal, maybe a total of 50 miles or more? Fantastic. Saw a few places I have not skated, like Ojai and Santa Ana River Trail. They are going on my "To Do" list.

Since your video, the Venice Beach bike trail and skate plaza has been re-done and a skateboard park added. Unfortunately, some of those updates are not aging well. In many places the concrete has raised expansion joints, cracks and pitted surfaces. A Venice skate group started a petition asking Los Angeles to re-surface some of the skate plaza, but it didn't get much support. So for now you just have to jump/avoid the bad parts. Still, Venice Beach remains my favorite skate. So much skating history there, you can feel it in the atmosphere. Might be the spirits of skaters past, I donno. I have some recent pictures of Venice in the Album portion of my profile page. Most of them were taken last year.

...I have some recent pictures of Venice in the Album portion of my profile page....

Nice shots! Love all of the public art out there. Wanted to move but could not afford that area. I did quite a bit of couch surfing though. Manged to spend about three months a year out there in Santa Monica two blocks from Venice and one mile from the beach - all downhill. Maybe i should start playing the Lotto. Probably need more $$$ than that though.